Re: Anyone starting beekeeping in 2018?

Sun Oct 08, 2017 10:18 pm

I have been taking care of the garden bees for about 4 years and I am still learning. Even if you don't have hives yet you can still join a bee club and learn from other beekeepers. The best time to catch swarms is after the honey flows starts. April- June. Late swarms are hard to keep alive in winter. You need to have your hive ready to go when you catch a swarm. They won't necessarily stay unless you provide them with a reason to stay. Most first timers put swarms in their nice new boxes and find them absconding because bees prefer a fixer upper with drawn comb with honey and pollen in a place they have chosen.

Learn all you can or maybe find someone who has bees you can help in the meantime so they can teach you what you need to know. A lot of beekeeping is on the job training and learning by making mistakes.

When you are ready you can get buy some bees for the first hive and then catch a swarm for the second. If you are lucky sometimes people will have too many bees and be willing to share or sell some splits. You can see if there is a local bee registry. People will call during swarm season wanting people to take bees off their property. If you do that, make sure it is not far away and you ask the right questions. You don't want any swarm that has already settled in, or if the homeowner has sprayed them with insecticides before calling. You want a swarm you can actually reach. You also need to have the right equipment and preferably have a suit and the equipment in your car ready to go at any time. In the meantime, you can plan on planting insectary flowers on your property. Nectar and pollen plants will attract bees. Provide them with food water, and shelter and they may be easier to lure in.

Re: Anyone starting beekeeping in 2018?

Mon Oct 09, 2017 2:54 am

imafan26 wrote:I have been taking care of the garden bees for about 4 years and I am still learning. Even if you don't have hives yet you can still join a bee club and learn from other beekeepers. The best time to catch swarms is after the honey flows starts. April- June. Late swarms are hard to keep alive in winter. You need to have your hive ready to go when you catch a swarm. They won't necessarily stay unless you provide them with a reason to stay. Most first timers put swarms in their nice new boxes and find them absconding because bees prefer a fixer upper with drawn comb with honey and pollen in a place they have chosen.

Learn all you can or maybe find someone who has bees you can help in the meantime so they can teach you what you need to know. A lot of beekeeping is on the job training and learning by making mistakes.

When you are ready you can get buy some bees for the first hive and then catch a swarm for the second. If you are lucky sometimes people will have too many bees and be willing to share or sell some splits. You can see if there is a local bee registry. People will call during swarm season wanting people to take bees off their property. If you do that, make sure it is not far away and you ask the right questions. You don't want any swarm that has already settled in, or if the homeowner has sprayed them with insecticides before calling. You want a swarm you can actually reach. You also need to have the right equipment and preferably have a suit and the equipment in your car ready to go at any time. In the meantime, you can plan on planting insectary flowers on your property. Nectar and pollen plants will attract bees. Provide them with food water, and shelter and they may be easier to lure in.

Thanks for all the advice! I live in a rural area so I've been stuck with online research. Been looking around for a local beekeeper or group that isn't to far out of the way for one hands on before I delve into bees There's so much to learn about bees but it just makes me want to have some more.

Re: Anyone starting beekeeping in 2018?

Mon Oct 09, 2017 4:07 am

Our garden got bees from the bee project. The varoa mite came to Oahu in 2007 and by 2011 there were no bees in the garden. The university Bee project brought bees to the garden, offered classes to master gardeners who take care of the bees. We get advanced training and we do outreach to the community with our teaching hive and last year we did our first pollinator event. The bees are back. We have 31 acres in the garden and there are a diverse number of plants so that in our mild climate it is possible for the bees to have some forage year round. We try to grow things as organically as possible and use organic methods as much as possible. It still does not guarantee our bees cannot pick up anything from our neighbors and the local community college also has bees 2 miles away so it is possible for our bees to interact.

Our purpose is not really to get every person to get a beehive but to make people more aware of the importance and the plight of not only the bees but other pollinators and beneficial insects. Bees are the poster child of the pollinators but there are many others that actually pollinate a wider variety of plants than honey bees but aren't as well known.

The best way people can help beneficial insects is to1 Preserve wild habitats like meadows and native plants2. Plant a variety of flowering plants in your yard so that something is in bloom all of the time. Most insects live on nectar and pollen. Predatory insect babies eat most of the insects but the adults usually need flowers for food. 3 Encourage beneficial insects; tolerate some damage and use ipm management to control bad bugs and preserve the good ones. Use chemicals only as a last resort. Remove the flowers before you spray a couple of days before and keep the buds picked until the chemical residues are gone. 4.Provide habitat A piece of wood drilled with holes from 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch mounted on a post provides homes for carpenter and leaf cutter bees. Bare ground provides nesting places for ground nesting sweat bees that pollinate vegetable crops. Trees, shrubs, piles of rocks, hollow logs, and cracked pottery can become homes to beneficial animals. Certain plants like dill, fennel, coriander, basil, oregano, thyme, marjoram, single flat radial flowers like sunflowers, cosmos, zinnias, marigolds, alyssum, daisies,sage,vervain, fruit and nut trees provide food for beneficial insects. 5.Good cultural habits like garden sanitation, removing sick and heavily infested plants, scouting, and selecting the right plant for the right place and giving them the nutrients and water they need will go a long way to making your garden more environmentally friendly and productive.

I have planted flowers for years in my garden and bees visited every day. After the hive pests took their toll on the wild and managed hives, I went down to 1 bee. The bees have come back to my garden although not in the same numbers as before and I am now replanting my front yard and expanding the beds so I can plant more flowers.